Because we so fiercely protective, we can be seen as interfering without meaning to. We could take charge and involve ourselves where we have no business. In the private sanctuaries of our children’s hearts.

We run the risk of interfering because we think we know better. We do not want our children to stumble so we stop them from venturing out and trying. We block the little falls they so desperately need in order to avoid those big falls.

There is always the danger of not approving so often, that we become disapproving. That our children feel unwanted and unsafe near us. That they stay away.

My buddy told me that the day her mom died it felt like a big, black devil climbed off her back. And so many of us have the same without even realizing it. We are wrapped in chains and bondage to what our mothers think or might say. That ever disapproving down-turn of the mouth. Those criticizing eyes. That feeling of condemnation. The dread of nearness.

Our own mothers are from a completely different generation. They just got on with life. Their mothers did not run to school every time they had issues with teachers, they did not interfere in friendships because they were simply too busy. They were not pampered and mollycoddled. That has predisposed them to disapprove of the way we raise our children and the way we chose to live our lives.

We should learn to set our children free, exactly because our own mothers did not release us.